


And Breathe Again

by The_Girl_Who_Got_Tired_of_Waiting



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, M/M, TGSSecretSanta2k18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 05:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17094773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Girl_Who_Got_Tired_of_Waiting/pseuds/The_Girl_Who_Got_Tired_of_Waiting
Summary: Phillip has never been free enough to breathe easily. But that was before the circus.





	And Breathe Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheMissingMask](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMissingMask/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Breathe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644023) by [TheMissingMask](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMissingMask/pseuds/TheMissingMask). 



> I was thrilled to receive [The MissingMask](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMissingMask/pseuds/TheMissingMask) as my recipient! Not only is their fic [Breathe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644023/chapters/39023057) a new favorite of mine, they are also a genuinely lovely person. I just hope this fic is a worthy enough gift for them! 
> 
> Their one request was Barlyle, possible with Phillip related angst. This is what I came up with.

_Breathe..._

Phillip’s first breath comes stuttered and broken. He is small and weak and his tiny chest struggles with the effort. For nearly five full minutes the doctor, and the woman who has been helping his mother, both fuss over him. They try rubbing at his back, his chest, try slapping at his skin to get him to cry and still he does not. They shake their heads and mutter but do not answer when Phillip’s mother asks how he is, will not even tell her if her baby is a boy or a girl. Eventually, panic and frustration outweigh the bone deep tiredness she is feeling and she gets to her feet. The doctor is too distracted with Phillip to protest as Mrs Carlyle approaches the table he has been laid upon.

It is probably coincidence that Phillip finally, at long last starts to breathe properly at the exact moment his mother touches him. There was nothing physically wrong with him, as far as the doctor could tell afterwards and he probably would have started crying then anyway. But it is for that coincidence that Phillip knows the story. His mother is not prone to shows of sentiment, certainly not while her husband or anyone else is present to witness it. Phillip learns early on that affection is something that he can only receive from his mother in private. It is in those fleeting, hidden moments that he will sometimes, if he is feeling bold enough, ask her to tell him a story. Sometimes, if she is feeling bold enough in return, safe in the knowledge that they will not be overheard, she will tell him that story. She will tell him how he only breathed at her touch and then could not be stopped from crying until he was held tight against her.

When Phillip if four his mother gives birth again, this time to a baby girl. She never does breathe properly, not at the ministrations of the doctor, or at his mother’s magic touch. She dies within the hour and afterwards is never talked about, never mentioned, never named. Phillip is not old enough to remember it properly and might have forgotten altogether, if not for his grandmother. She speaks of Phillip’s sister twice when he is growing up and each time Phillip has to be reminded of her fleeting existence.

_Breathe..._

When Phillip is five, he falls from his horse. For a few long moments he lays face down in the dirt and cannot breathe, cannot get air into his lungs. He tastes dirt, and blood from his split lip. When he finally manages to draw in a shuddering, shaky breath he nearly chokes himself with the mud he is laying in and with the pain that lances through his side. He screams and that takes all the effort he has.

Back at the house, a doctor is swiftly summoned and just as swiftly diagnoses cracked ribs which will take time to heal. Phillip is still just young enough that it is a cause for concern from his parents. A few years later and he might have received reprimands instead.

Phillip’s mother sends his nanny away and insists she will tend to him instead. For that night at least, and for a few nights after that, she props Phillip up in her bed and sleeps beside him.

Phillip’s father is away ‘on business’, which Phillip later grows to learn means he is with another woman which his mother knows about and doesn’t question, sees it as part of her duty to turn a blind eye to. When he hears of Phillip’s accident, he sends a letter which is both stiffly formal and displaying the most concern he has ever shown for Phillip’s wellbeing. It conveys his hopes that Phillip will recover soon. Phillip reads and re-reads the words his father would never have spoken to his face. For a while at least, he thinks his father may actually love him.

When Mr Carlyle returns a week after the letter, Phillip is back sleeping in his own bed again. Mr Carlyle gives his wife flowers and his son chocolates, which Phillip can never remember him doing before. Phillip eats the chocolates slowly, nibbling at the edges and then sucking on them until they melt, as he treasures the sensation of being cared about enough to be worried over. His mother keeps the flowers until they wilt and then presses the largest bloom inside a heavy, rarely read, book. For a while, Phillip thinks the memory of that day can be trapped as easily as the petals between those pages.

_Breathe..._

Less than two years later, Phillip has all the breath knocked clean out of him again. This time it is no accident, but at the receiving end of his father’s fist. Punishment for a transgression Phillip cannot later recall. He can only remember the force behind his father’s hand, how it fits just under his ribs and how the phantom weight of it lingers for days along with the bruises.

It may not be the first time that it happens, but it is the first time that Phillip will later remember with such vivid intensity.

He remembers his mother’s face in the doorway, watching it happen and doing nothing to intervene. He remembers the precise way her hair is styled, as she turns and walks away.

_Breathe..._

But Phillip cannot. He is sure his life is being squeezed out of him along with the last vestiges of air. He will die before he is sixteen.

His father’s hands cover Phillip’s neck like a noose. Phillip had babbled nonsensically – _I’m sorry, Father, it will never happen again I’m sorry, pleasepleasepleaseI’msorry_ – but words are pressed out of him now.

The hands squeeze tighter the more Phillip struggles. Until he can struggle no more, can feel himself growing weak. He finally submits to this. It is no more than what he deserves. For disobeying, for disappointing, for being caught _kissing a boy, he is a fool_ _what did he think would happen?_

He is not yet so far gone that he cannot hear his father’s words and he believes them all. 

He is a disgrace.

He is disgusting, a degenerate whore.

Phillip falls to the floor. Every desperate breath he takes burns his throat, his lungs, so much pain that he does not at first realise he has been released. His father stands over him, watches him struggle and gasp and cry.

All Phillip can think of to say to him is, “Thank you,” for the breath he has been allowed to take in again.

_Breathe..._

For a long time, the very world he inhabits suffocates Phillip. He has never worn a corset but he imagines its constraints would feel similar. Trapping him. Suppressing him. Harsh edges rub at his skin until it is raw, the very bones of his body being squeezed, moulded, until at last he will be reformed permanently into a more pleasing shape.

_Breathe..._

Freedom comes to Phillip on a whisper of whisky scented air, and words that linger like the finest smoke as they permeate his brain.

_Breathe..._

Finding the circus is like being born anew. The first breaths he takes there could be little different to those first infant gasps, sending new air to inflate his lungs and fill every fibre of his being.

The only air Phillip wants to live upon from that moment onwards is dry with sawdust and hot from the press of bodies in the audience and on the stage, and with the faintest scratch of glitter at the back of his throat.

_Breathe..._

The fire steals every inch of air from Phillip’s new world, claiming it with flames and smoke and heat. When he tries to inhale, it starts to claim Phillip too. It sears his lungs as well as his skin. When Phillip coughs from the smoke it rips at his throat and tastes like tar.

There is no escape.

No air left in the building, in the world, in Phillip.

His sanctuary is melting, crumbling around him.

He thinks, at least, that he may actually get his wish. When the end comes, with his final breath he will be breathing in the remnants of the circus too. He will consume it as it consumes him.

But the darkness quickly takes that thought away from Phillip, too.

 

_... And breathe..._

_....And breathe..._

_And breathe...._

 

Phillip keeps breathing, somehow. He comes back to the world in a room so white he can hardly see and for a moment he still thinks that this is death. Because Anne is above him, as brilliant as any angel should be. She’s here, when Phillip knows she was trapped in the fire. She must have died, they both must have died...

Then the pain hits, and Phillip knows he is alive because of it.

Anne laughs when Phillip tells her he thought she was an angel. That makes Phillip laugh too. He laughs until he coughs, until he chokes.

He has to remind himself how to breathe again, with Anne’s hand rubbing circles on his back.

_Breathe..._

“How long?” Phillip asks, choked out between rasping breaths at the end of one of those episodes. “How long before I heal?”

He is alone, this time, save for the nurses and the doctor who looks at him pityingly.

“You inhaled a great deal of smoke,” he is reminded unnecessarily. “Your lungs are damaged.”

“How long?” Phillip asks again.

“You may heal to some extent,” comes the answer that Phillip already knows, can already feel with every stuttered breath, “but the damage is, at least partly, permanent.”

For the first time in days, there is no one from the circus at Phillip’s bedside. No one to hear that. No one to hear the sob that sticks in Phillip’s throat.

_Breathe..._

“How long?” Anne asks, as she rubs those soothing circles on his back which do little to actually help but, God, Phillip wishes they would.

“Not long,” Phillip says. “A few weeks, at most.”  

He finishes putting on his coat, and walks out of the hospital with her at his side.

_Breathe..._

It almost works.

Phillip learns his limits quickly, learns how to hide them just as swiftly.  If he is out of breath after a routine then so is nearly everyone else. If he takes a little longer to recover then he can hide it well. He has spent a life time putting on a mask to show the world that he is fine.

He is the ringmaster now. He has quite the act to follow.

_Breathe..._

Until he can’t. Can’t mask it. Can’t keep on pretending. Can’t breathe.

He staggers to the tent that has become his office and gasp, gasp, gasps, between choking coughs so violent they make him wretch. The show is still ongoing. The noise of the performance will surely drown out the fuss he is making. Someone will cover for his absence.

He feels as close to death as he has ever done, as he was during the fire, as he was with his father’s hands constricted around his throat.

“Phillip?”

A hand rests on his back, solid and sure, large enough to nearly fill the space between his shoulder blades. Familiar enough that Phillip does not need to look up to know who is knelt behind him.

He cannot even acknowledge Barnum, let alone greet him, but he tries anyway.

“Just breathe, Phillip. No talking. Just breathing.”

Arms wrap around Phillip’s chest and hold him. Not restraining, not hurting, just holding. They give his aching chest something to press against. The embrace calms his panic.

“Just breathe, Phillip. Just breathe.”

 And Phillip does.

_Breathe..._

“I’m not weak,” Phillip insists, even though he is so worn out from last night’s episode that his breathing is still fractured, splintering like a thousand pieces of glass with each inhale.

“I never said you were,” Barnum assures him.

“Then why are you coming back? I can manage the shows without you.” They are words that Phillip hisses furiously without meaning to, and at the same time reflecting his adamant resolve.

“I was coming back anyway. Retirement does not suit me.”

 Phillip does not need this. He does not need Barnum. He can manage the shows. He tells Barnum that and Barnum just kneels in front of where Phillip is sitting. He puts one hand against Phillip’s chest, which is still throbbing with an uncomfortable ache.

“You can manage half the shows. I can handle the rest. You just keep breathing, Flip.”

Phillip has enough breath to remind Barnum that only Caroline and Helen are allowed to call him that.

_Breathe..._

"Why didn't you tell me?" asks Anne, her voice cracking. "Why didn't you tell any of us? We could have helped." 

Because I didn't want this, Phillip thinks as alterations are made, as concessions are put in place. I didn't want any of this. 

"Because I didn't want to upset you," Phillip says, knowing he has failed spectacularly in this intention. He has never seen Anne as upset as she is now. Not when he seemingly rejected her under his parents glare. Not when his parents were despicable to her at the theatre. Not when he was in hospital. Not even when they decided, ultimately, things would most likely never work out between them. Never so sad as when she listens to his rasping breath. 

_Breathe..._

Barnum comes back. He takes a full two weeks of shows to allow Phillip time to recover then splits them evenly with Phillip. That alone, Phillip could permit. He has missed Barnum. The whole circus has missed Barnum. It is everything else that comes with Phillip’s new status as invalid, as permanently damaged, which he detests.

Phillip arrives at rehearsals to find that choreography has been changed. He now has sections of the show where he is supposed to do nothing but stand and watch. If he is carrying something heavy it is quickly snatched out of his grip. He is moved away from smoke, from the fire breathers, from anything the rest of the troupe deem may affect him. He is barred from tending to the horses because someone heard that straw could affect a bad chest. The horses had always been a source of comfort for Phillip. They reminded him of some of the happiest times of his childhood, the first time he could ever remember feeling free.

Frustration and humiliation burn worse than any affliction Phillip now suffers.

_Breathe..._

It boils out of him at last. Angry words spill out of him like water, as though his lungs are at last clearing themselves of the murk within them and now spit it forth at anyone within range.

“I hate this!” he shouts. He wants to throw something, wants to punch something, if he had not long ago vowed he would never become that kind of man. “I hate all of this. I hate your pity. I hate being controlled. It is like being back with my father. I might as well be back with him.”

He stops once those words are out. He is grateful, at least, that only Phineas is around. Only Phineas heard that. The man steps towards Phillip now and the younger man flinches, sure that Phineas will tell him that, if that is the case, then Phillip should just leave.

“You never talk about your father,” he says instead. “That’s the first time you’ve mentioned him in all this time.”

“I know.” The anger has left Phillip’s voice, just as the energy leaves his body and he sits down, lets Phineas stand over him until the older man kneels too. “There’s a reason for that.”

“You scared me,” says Phineas. “Scared all of us.”

“I know. But I’m still here.” Phillip entwines his fingers with Phineas’. He brings the ringmaster’s hand to his chest so that he can feel how, today at least, it rises evenly, falls without issue, and Phillip keeps on breathing through it.

Phineas sighs, so close that it brushes like a ghost against Phillip’s face. “That’s the thing about this, isn’t it? You’re going to keep on scaring us.”

“Possibly.”

“Definitely.” 

Their hands remain locked together, both feeling the rise and fall of Phillip’s chest, both watching the space between them.

_Breathe..._

Controlling becomes helping. They give Phillip the space in which he needs to breathe, as well as trying to make that easier for him. Rather than cut him out of the show’s routines, they work on his stamina, stretching the capacity of his lungs a little more and a little more. It may not ever be what it once was, what it should be, but Phillip will take the improvement. He clutches with both hands at any improvement he can get, any day he can get through where he doesn’t have to even think about breathing.

He doesn’t mind being positioned away from the fire breathers. Sometimes he still wakes at night with flames dancing in the corners of his eyes. The entire circus has grown used to being woken by him screaming; his caravan is hardly sound proof. One night, Barnum sleeps over at the circus. On hearing Phillip’s screaming, he goes to Phillip’s bed, and lies down beside him, a presence warm and solid and safe by his side. Phillip sleeps the rest of the night through in dreamless oblivion.

On bad days, Phillip hides among the animals. They do not judge. They do not pity, or panic. The horses look at him no differently, whether they can hear the rasp in his throat or not.

The really bad days become less frequent. Phillip is no longer working himself into the ground, so his body has time to rest. But still they do sometimes come. Through trial and error they find the best position for Phillip to be in. Sat leaning back against Barnum. Two strong arms wrapped around his chest, supporting him, holding him, taking all the space from around Phillip and leaving him with just the room he needs to breathe.

_Breathe..._

When Phillip’s breath is taken from him once more, it is in a kiss, in the nonexistent gap between Phineas’ lips and his. His air is not stolen, it is handed over willingly. When he does inhale, it is in a breath full of Phineas, his scent, his touch. It is finding out how cold you have been only when you are plunged suddenly into heat. It is warmth that spreads from where their mouths are joined to every inch of Phillip’s body. It flows down Phillip’s throat like sunshine into a darkened room, coils in his gut and floods his lungs. A whimper or a moan escapes Phillip and is swallowed quickly, Phineas claiming what is his.  

Phillip may have been holding his breath his whole life in anticipation of this moment he didn’t know was coming.

_And breathe again..._

The last note of a show sings in Phillip’s bones. His chest is protesting, distantly. Much more pressing is the crowd in front of him, cheering, and the crowd at his back, standing with him. He can barely feel the current, newly sparked ache in his chest, but he can feel the hours-old touch of Barnum’s fingertips still lingering on his flesh.

He inhales, holds the breath for one...two...three... before exhaling once more.  

Phillip may never breathe normally again.

It is the freest he has ever breathed in his life.


End file.
